Portal:Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The Indigenous peoples of the Americas Portal

Current distribution of Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the peoples who are native to the Americas or the Western Hemisphere. Their ancestors are among the pre-Columbian population of South or North America, including Central America and the Caribbean. Indigenous peoples live throughout the Americas. While often minorities in their countries, Indigenous peoples are the majority in Greenland and close to a majority in Bolivia and Guatemala.

There are at least 1,000 different Indigenous languages of the Americas. Some languages, including Quechua, Arawak, Aymara, Guaraní, Nahuatl, and some Mayan languages, have millions of speakers and are recognized as official by governments in Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, and Greenland. (Full article...)

Selected article

Chaco Culture National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park hosting the densest and most exceptional concentration of pueblos in the American Southwest. The park is located in northwestern New Mexico, between Albuquerque and Farmington, in a remote canyon cut by the Chaco Wash. Containing the most sweeping collection of ancient ruins north of Mexico, the park preserves one of the United States' most important pre-Columbian cultural and historical areas.

Between AD 900 and 1150, Chaco Canyon was a major center of culture for the Ancient Pueblo Peoples. Chacoans quarried sandstone blocks and hauled timber from great distances, assembling fifteen major complexes that remained the largest buildings in North America until the 19th century. Evidence of archaeoastronomy at Chaco has been proposed, with the "Sun Dagger" petroglyph at Fajada Butte a popular example. Many Chacoan buildings may have been aligned to capture the solar and lunar cycles, requiring generations of astronomical observations and centuries of skillfully coordinated construction. Climate change is thought to have led to the emigration of Chacoans and the eventual abandonment of the canyon, beginning with a fifty-year drought commencing in 1130.

Composing a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the arid and sparsely populated Four Corners region, the Chacoan cultural sites are fragile; fears of erosion caused by tourists have led to the closure of Fajada Butte to the public. The sites are considered sacred ancestral homelands by the Hopi and Pueblo people, who maintain oral accounts of their historical migration from Chaco and their spiritual relationship to the land. Though park preservation efforts can conflict with native religious beliefs, tribal representatives work closely with the National Park Service to share their knowledge and respect the heritage of the Chacoan culture.

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Selected image

Chimú figures, Peru

image credit: Walters Art Museum

General images

The following are images from various Indigenous peoples of the Americas-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1A bison hunt depicted in a painting by George Catlin (1844) (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 2A Quechua woman and child in the Sacred Valley in Cuzco Region, Peru (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 3Areas of Indigenous peoples in the Americas at time of European colonization (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 4The major indigenous language families of much of present-day South America and Panama (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 5Evo Morales, an Aymara member and former President of Bolivia (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 6Modern Maya people in Sololá, Guatemala (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 7Proportion of Native Americans in each county in 2020. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 8Embera girl in the Darién Province, 2006. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 9Indigenous Pipil women dancing in the traditional Procession of Palms in Panchimalco, El Salvador (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 10Guambía people relaxing in Colombia (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 11Indigenous peoples textile art in 1995 by Julia Pingushat, including Inuk, Arviat, Nunavut, Canada, wool, and embroidery floss (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 12Language families of Indigenous peoples in North America shown across present-day Canada, Greenland, the United States, and northern Mexico (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 13Proportion of Native Argentines in each department in 2022. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 14An Indigenous man playing a panpipe, antara, or siku (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 15Owners of a roadside cafe near Cachi, Salta Province, Argentina (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 16An Indigenous woman in traditional dress near Cochabamba, Bolivia (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 17Shaman of the Cofán people from the Amazonian forest in present-day Ecuador (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 18An Indigenous Terena man from present-day Brazil (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 19Members of an uncontacted tribe encountered in Acre in Brazil in 2009 (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 20Proportion of Native Mexicans in each municipalities in 2020. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 21A representation of the domesticated plant species cultivated by Indigenous peoples have influenced the crops that were produced globally. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 22A map showing the origin of the first wave of humans into the Americas, including the Ancestral Northern Eurasian, which represent a distinct Paleolithic Siberian population, and the Northeast Asians, which are an East Asian-related group. The admixture happened somewhere in Northeast Siberia. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 23Moche portrait vessel from Peru, 100 BCE–500 CE (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 24A qpGraph on the formation of Ancient Paleo-Siberians and Native American populations. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 25Maya glyphs in stucco now on display at Museo de sitio in Palenque, Mexico (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 26A Warao family traveling in their canoe in Venezuela (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 27Indigenous people at a farm plantation in Minas Gerais in present-day Brazil, c. 1824 (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 28The tomato (jitomate, in central Mexico) was later cultivated by the pre-Hispanic civilizations of Mexico. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 29The common bean is native to Mexico and Central America and later began to be cultivated in South America. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 30A Huichol woman from Zacatecas, Mexico (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 31Quechua women in festive dress on Taquile Island on Lake Titicaca, west of Peru (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 32A Choctaw artist in present-day Oklahoma (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 33The Rarámuri marathon in Urique (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 34A Mapuche man in present-day Chile (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 35The West Indies (or Antilles) in relation to the continental Americas (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 36Proportion of Native Brazilians in each department in 2022. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 37A Navajo boy in the desert in present-day Monument Valley in Arizona with the "Three Sisters" rock formation in the background in 2007 (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 38Tunumiit Inuit couple from Kulusuk, Greenland (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 39Indigenous populations of the Americas in 2024 (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 40A carnival with Tzeltal people in Tenejapa Municipality, Chiapas (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 41An illustration in Florentine Codex, compiled between 1540 and 1585 CE, depicting the Nahua peoples suffering from smallpox during the conquest-era in central Mexico (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 42A Mapuche man and woman; the Mapuche make up about 85% of Indigenous population that live in Chile. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 43The ancient Mesoamerican engraving of maize now on display at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 44An elderly Maya woman (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 45Principal component analysis showing the Native American cluster in other Eurasian populations. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 46Ceramic portrait of a Maya noblewoman, Jaina Island, Mexico, 600–800 CE (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 47Chimu culture feather pectoral, feathers, reed, copper, silver, hide, cordage, c. 1350–1450 (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 48A Navajo man on horseback in present-day Monument Valley in Arizona (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 49A map of Canada showing the percent of self-reported Indigenous identity (First Nations, Inuit, Métis) by census division, according to the 2021 Canadian census (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 50A schematic illustration of maternal (mtDNA) gene-flow in and out of Beringia, from 25,000 years ago to present
Image 51Wayuu women in the Guajira Peninsula, which encompasses parts of Colombia and Venezuela (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)

Selected biography

Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin (1474–1548), also known simply as Juan Diego (Spanish pronunciation: [ˌxwanˈdjeɣo]), was a Nahua peasant and Marian visionary. He is said to have been granted apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe on four occasions in December 1531: three at the hill of Tepeyac and a fourth before don Juan de Zumárraga, then the first bishop of Mexico. The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, located at the foot of Tepeyac, houses the cloak (tilmahtli) that is traditionally said to be Juan Diego's, and upon which the image of the Virgin is said to have been miraculously impressed as proof of the authenticity of the apparitions.

Juan Diego's visions and the imparting of the miraculous image, as recounted in oral and written colonial sources such as the Huei tlamahuiçoltica, are together known as the Guadalupe event (Spanish: el acontecimiento Guadalupano), and are the basis of the veneration of Our Lady of Guadalupe. This veneration is ubiquitous in Mexico, prevalent throughout the Spanish-speaking Americas, and increasingly widespread beyond. As a result, the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe is now one of the world's major Christian pilgrimage destinations, receiving 22 million visitors in 2010. (Full article...)

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Did you know…

... that the Cascajal Block, a serpentinite slab from the Olmec civilization, was dated to the which early first millennium BCE and may represent the earliest writing system in the Americas?
... that Jim Thorpe (Sac and Fox) won the 1912 Olympic gold medals for the pentathlon and decathlon?
...that underwater panthers were creatures appearing in the mythology of a number of Native American traditions, which combined the features of mountain lions or lynx with those of snakes, and were believed to inhabit the deepest parts of lakes and rivers?

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Indigenous peoples of the Americas

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Indigenous peoples of the Americas portal

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Raqchi archaeological site, Peru

image credit: AgainErick

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American indigenous language Wikipedias

Avañe'ẽ (Warani) · Aymar aru (Aymara) · ᏣᎳᎩ (Cherokee) · Chahta (Choctaw) · ᐃᔨᔫ (Cree) · ᐃᓄᒃ (Inuktitut) · Iñupiak · Kalaallisut (Greenlandic Inuit) · Mvskoke (Muscogee) · Nahuatlahtolli · Diné bizaad (Navajo) · Qhichwa Simi · Tsêhesenêstsestôtse (Cheyenne)

Indigenous languages in Wikimedia Incubators: Alabama · Blackfoot · Chinook Jargon · Choctaw · Creek · Lakota · Micmac · Mohawk · Nheengatu · Northwestern Ojibwa · O'odham · Shoshoni · Unami-Lenape · Wüne pakina (Mapudungun) · Yucatec Maya · Central Alaskan Yup'ik · Zuni

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